Friday, April 04, 2008

Anticlown Media

In class yesterday we discussed how the media is usually studied in a way to prove it’s a negative influence on society, not a positive one. Well usually these studies, articles, etc. are pretty serious and lack any time of humor about the issues. I found a site about a year ago called “The Superficial” that is similar to a tabloid magazine only it makes fun of the celebrities in the main stories in the media. I think it’s refreshing to read because Entertainment Weekly, US Weekly, Star, etc. are so damn serious about their “news” that it’s just plain annoying to read. “The Superficial” takes a very hilarious approach to updating you on news while also playing on the fact that the news is stupid and no one should care about it. It’s a blog style website with videos posted from youtube.com, pictures, quotes, and also reader comments to follow each “article”. I put the word “article” in parentheses because really each post is more like a paragraph of commentary, but enough to explain what the news is and the pictures/videos that follow. They have a couple cool features that follow each post. One is called “reddit” and it’s a feature you sign up for and once signed in, you can vote on specific links that you like or dislike and it helps them decide what’s popular and they should follow up with. One of the other features is called “Del.ici.ous”…it’s a funny name to say “save this story in my favorites”. “The Superficial” is actually part of a larger website called Anticlown Media. “The Superficial” is the gossip section, “Geeokologie” is the technology section, and “I Watch Stuff” is on movies. I think they are hilarious, depending on what you want to read up on. The only thing that’s irritating, especially during the writing of this blog, is that I can’t find a way to directly link to a single article. Or at least it isn’t blatantly obvious. It seems that in order to really do anything but read, you have to become a member of one of the features I mentioned. So instead I will just have to give you the link to The Superficial, Geekologie, and I Watch Stuff so that you can check out the posts yourselves.